


Just Bismuth as Usual

by espurr_roba



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, it's sort of like an epilogue to the Bismuth special I guess, sort of, steven is sad™
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-05
Updated: 2016-08-05
Packaged: 2018-07-29 15:01:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7689067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/espurr_roba/pseuds/espurr_roba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steven visits a bubbled friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Bismuth as Usual

“Um… Hey.”

It already felt like a breach of privacy, just _addressing_ her, after what had happened. After what he had… you know, _done._ Would it even be fair to her to just _be there_ in the room?

He, he should leave. Like, right now. He was already getting cold feet.

But one foot was still frozen in the room, the foot whose sandal had been left behind just mere days ago. The pulsating warmth of the floor, heated by the lava coursing underneath like a living stream, burned through his tender heel, and it’s the thought of it and the situation that arose that ironically dispelled away the feeling of cold feet.

Steeling himself, he took another step into the bubble room. He found himself unable to stop until he had walked much farther than he thought he could in one burst, until he stopped underneath a bubble that made his heart lurch.

“Hey, Bismuth,” he waved upwards to her bubble, voice cracking from both feelings and residual pain.

Speaking of pain, the stinging of his bare foot was getting to be too much. Gingerly, he took a seat on the barren floor, staring up at the sky of reds and purples and blues and definitely pinks. His eyes still stayed fixated on the rainbow colored gem that would have been the most immediately eye catching of all hadn't it been, tauntingly, tinted pink.

He wasn't sure exactly _how_ long he was staring, but he knew he was doing it long enough to realize he was stalling.

So he sighed, completely at a loss. What was he supposed to do, say something like, _‘oh sorry I stabbed you and just kept you bubbled away, do you want a gift basket or something as an apology?’_

That _probably_ wouldn't really help.

Did this even help in the first place, though? Would she even _want_ to hear what he had to say? _Could_ she even hear him, being bubbled up like that? For all he know, he could just be talking to empty air. Empty air, and hundreds of unresponsive Gems…

He was seriously contemplating just pulling at his hair in frustration, because seriously! What was he supposed to _do?!_ Ugh, and he spent _days_ planning on what to _say!_

With an exasperated groan directed solely at himself, Steven plopped onto his back, arms and legs outstretched and gaze staring solely at Bismuth’s bubble.

There just wasn't any right answer here, was there?

He found himself with his mouth opened, so, _so_ prepared to vocalize everything in him from regret to guilt to sorrow to blame to frustration…

“I’ve been trying to understand,” he blurted out, forgoing all those emotions stewing within him in favor of just this numb… well, _numbness._ “Understand, you know… _you._ What you stand for. What you do.”

It was odd, considering this wasn't exactly the thing he really expected to talk about, but now that he had started he just couldn't _stop._

“And… I mean, I could see why everyone else I know believed in different things. Lapis just wanted to go home, and Peridot didn't _know_ any better, and Centi was just doing her job! Even _Jasper_ , she’s just doing what Homeworld taught her and I don’t agree with it _at all_ but I can at least see why she thinks that's the right way. But I… _you_ … I just don't _get_ you! Aggh…!”

Steven slapped the heels of his palms at his temple, eyes scrunched up in frustration. Because really, it’s not like he hadn't been _trying_ ! He _knew_ there must’ve been _something_ that could have possibly justified… _that._

He sighed miserably, arms falling to the ground uselessly. “Maybe I just don't know how bad the War really was. Maybe it’s just because I’m some soft meatball.” At that, Steven chuckled bitterly, the mood lightening for only a moment before the gravity of the situation suffocated it. “But… Wanting to shatter innocent Gems? That’s not something I can _ever_ understand.”

There was a heavy moment of silence in the air around him. Him, and all the other Gems that had been bubbled.

He found his eyes trailing to a now empty spot in the sea of bubbles, remembering a certain monster buddy… and why she was a monster in the first place.

“You see all those Gems around you?” he asked, before correcting himself. “Sorry, I mean, I guess you can't _see_ , but um, we’ve been bubbling these Gems for who knows _how_ long. Well, the others probably know, I kind of wasn't _around_ when they first started doing this, but the point is that these Gems are _corrupted._ And… I’m pretty sure all of them are Crystal Gems _and_ Homeworld Gems.”

His eyes drifted towards all the bubbled Gems that he could recognize. It was a lot, of course, but the unfamiliar ones _far_ outweighed the ones he knew.

“It happened at the end of the War, I think,” Steven said. “I mean, I wasn't there, but that’s when you were bubbled inside of Lion’s mane. When… _Mom_ put you there.” Okay, okay, he should really backtrack a bit. “Damage from the Diamonds… I, I think it was like their final attack, to just _end_ the War. And it ended up corrupting almost _everyone._ Now… they’re just… It’s like they’re not _there_ anymore. Like they forgot who they used to be…”

He drifted off into silence, staring intently at nothing.

All those corrupted Gems… It was like Garnet had said, that it was as if the fabric of their mind had been torn. It… wasn't something that could be healed with a kiss.

He had helped Centipeedle though, right? She remembered him, she remembered her crew, and she _still_ remembered both of them.

But… the _pain_ she went through, reverting back to her corrupted form, still suffering the damage from the Diamonds after millenia…

Could he even truly say that he had _helped_ her?

“Maybe if you saw how they are now, you’d see how wrong this war was to _everybody,_ not just the Crystal Gems. That they should’ve been given the chance to be whatever they could be, just like us.” A pause. “No… That’s not fair to you, to show you how… how _lost_ those Gems are now. Some of them must’ve been your friends, right? That’d just be cruel.”

Could he show her how Gems like Lapis and Peridot, Gems that had once been allied with Homeworld’s society for one reason or another, had been able to see the beauty of the planet Earth, how they can be _more_ than what they were told to be? They were given the opportunity to be what _they_ wanted to be. Wouldn't it be wrong to deny them of that chance to change just because they took a side in a war or because Homeworld was everything they had ever known?

He could have gone down that path for hours, trying to make some sense of the Gem who would so willingly destroy those who were just like Lapis and Peridot.

"They miss you, you know,” Steven found himself saying instead. “Garnet, Amethyst, Pearl, they're all kind of dealing with it differently, I think. Amethyst’s been spending the last few days training like _crazy_ so she can beat Jasper. She’s um, _really_ liking that new spike ball upgrade to her whip you gave her. Garnet and Pearl, they’re just trying to continue on doing Gem stuff, you know? Just _Bismuth_ as usual.”

He chuckled at the joke, and this time his weak laughter was able to die down on its own accord. At the silence that settled back in, Steven pursed his lips into a thin line.

“They’re sad. I know they’re only trying to pretend their not for my sake. And that’s, that’s not _fair_ to them! They’re hurting, Garnet and Pearl especially, they’re hurting because they _missed you_ , you were always their friend. _Still_ their friend, even after what… you know, _happened.”_

There was a sort of lump that arose in his throat that Steven found hard to swallow back down.

“It’s kind of why I’m here,” he admitted. “I know they want to pretend everything’s fine, even after I told them everything, but this isn't something that I can just _move on_ from! Pearl and Garnet won't talk about and Amethyst is obsessing over Jasper to have _time_ to talk! I… I can't just _force_ them to talk about it when they don't want to, but it’s just, this is something I’ve just gotta let out, you know? ...Um, sorry if I'm just putting all this baggage on you. I’m still not sure if you can even hear me in there, but I’m sorry. Sorry that I couldn't do anything to help you, and I’m sorry that I couldn't fix what my Mom did.”

Steven rolled to his side, drawing his knees in as close as he could. His hand hovered desperately over his navel, unsure whether the gem underneath his shirt would give him any solace or not. “I’m not my mom, you know. I’m… not Rose Quartz. I’m just…”

Just what? A human? No, that couldn't be it. His dad and Connie were _human beings_ . And he… _wasn't._

So… what did that make _him?_

“Just… _me_ ,” Steven muttered miserably. He reached under the fabric of his shirt and gripped tightly at the gem embedded in his navel.

It felt cold to the touch.

He was reminded of Bismuth’s vehement proclamation that night in Steven’s room, where--

_Bismuth._

This… wasn't about him right now. This was about Bismuth.

“Heh, sorry,” Steven tried laughing off, blinking away the wetness in his eyes. “Guess I made this the Steven Show, huh?”

He looked back up to her gem, for some reason expecting _some_ sort of answer.

The bubble was unresponsive.

Steven sat up, hands rested on his lap. Her bubble didn't look _that_ high, maybe he could--

No, he was stopping that thought _right there._ He couldn't, not right now, not when the Gems were still reeling from the deceit his mother had put them through and the actions that Bismuth had tried to take. It wasn't his place to decide something like this.

He felt _horrible_ having to deal with the decision to keep someone who had just spent the last _five thousand years_ trapped and hidden away in another bubble, but this time it’d be _different._ She wasn't going to be tucked away where no one could find her, her friends _knew_ and still cared for her so, _so_ much, someday soon she would definitely be free and alive and _loved._

Bismuth wouldn't be forgotten.

“I know they love you,” Steven said suddenly, because that was something he _had_ to let her know, that all this time her friends still felt _so much_ immense love for her _,_ that no matter what her good if seriously misguided intentions weren't enough to villify her. “Even after all of this time, after all that happened, they still love you all the same. And I _know_ you’re still good. I can’t ever agree with what you want to do, and I’m not sure I could even _understand it_ , but that doesn't make you any less of a good person. I believe it. I believe in _you_."

He stood up, a huge weight lifted from his shoulders. With a bright grin he had been incapable of making these past long, few days, he waved to her bubbled gem. “See you around, Bismuth!”

With a bounce to his step and a smile on his face, Steven left the bubble room, knowing for a fact he’d visit in there again soon enough.

  
Right now, though, it was just Bismuth as usual.


End file.
